Bitch Media - Karl Lagerfeldhttp://bitchmagazine.org/taxonomy/term/4336/0
enKarl Lagerfeld Calls Feminists Ugly -- FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!http://bitchmagazine.org/post/karl-lagerfeld-calls-feminists-ugly-from-beyond-the-grave
<p>News in tired feminist stereotypes has taken a turn for the weird in this month's issue of <a href="http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/fashion-articles/coco-chanel-karl-lagerfeld-0909"><i>Harper's Bazaar.</i></a> Fashion designer (and future zombie-lookalike contest winner) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lagerfeld">Karl Lagerfeld</a> is the author of an article wherein he interviews the long-deceased <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel">Coco Chanel,</a> playing the part of both the interviewer and subject by channeling Chanel from beyond the grave. (Hey, you were warned about the weirdness.)</p>
<p>At any rate, this might just be another example of extreme (and extremely creepy) fashion industry navel-gazing if it weren't for a few particularly obnoxious questions/answers by the zombie-esque Lagerfeld and his familiar, the actual zombie Chanel. (<i>Fear not: Though Chanel is in fact answering questions from beyond the grave, there is no evidence yet to support her status as an actual zombie.</i>) An excerpt from the "interview":</p>
<blockquote><p>HB: Your clothing liberated women in the 1920s. Are you still a feminist?</p>
<p>CC: I was never a feminist because I was never ugly enough for that.</p></blockquote>
<p>Puh-leez. Lagerfeld, are you serious? Can we EVER get away from the feminists-are-ugly attack? It looks like some people in the fashion industry are still using this insult even 38 years after they have died! Get over it already! And stop channeling dead people in order to take cheap shots at feminists! Not cool!</p>
<p><center><img src="/sites/default/files/karl_lagerfeld_is_never_hap.jpg" width="320" height="240" alt="karl_lagerfeld_is_never_hap.jpg" /></center><br />
<center><i>U! G! L! Y! Karl Lagerfeld thinks feminists ain't got no alibi! (Image via <a href="http://habituallychic.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html">Habitually Chic</a>)</i></center></p>
<p>At any rate, there's not too much to say about this wack insult that hasn't been talked about a million times already. People who feel especially threatened/annoyed by feminism are always going to go for that special jugular that is the looks-based attack. Plus, Lagerfeld is in the fashion industry, an industry that has been built upon fostering insecurities (especially in women) since people started paying thousands of dollars to wear fake birds on their heads. It should come as no surprise, then, that he would use his weirdo channeling exercise to call feminists ugly in the voice of a deceased fashion icon (he also references Botox and tanning in his "interview" so it's not as if he was avoiding the superficial route).</p>
<p>But what's a feminist to do here? Ignore it? Write to <i>Harper's</i> and tell them to knock it off? Only put super-conventionally-hot feminists in feminist media in order to create a P.R. blitz that obliterates the ugly stereotype? (For the record, I don't think that is a progressive or feminist idea.) It's all just SO tired and frustrating. GET. OVER. IT. ALREADY. FEMINIST. HATERS. Or are feminists the ones who should get over it?</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/karl-lagerfeld-calls-feminists-ugly-from-beyond-the-grave#commentsCoco ChanelfashionfeminismHarper's BazaarKarl LagerfelduglyZombiesDigiBitchWed, 12 Aug 2009 18:49:30 +0000Kelsey Wallace2004 at http://bitchmagazine.org